A multi-GRAMMY Award-winning singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who spent 28 years as a member of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band Chicago. He has performed around the world and has a musical career that goes all the way back to a band he formed in 1961. Along the way he has worked with everyone from Patti LaBelle to Elton John, Donna Summer, Neil Diamond, and Kenny Rogers, among many others. He continues to write, record, and perform, having released a 14-song album last year.
“That’s kind of how I write, if something grabs me, if I’m diggin’ something that just sort of comes out when I’m just fooling around, that’s where most of the good songs come from, is when you’re just messing around.”
“That’s usually what happens, I come up with the actual… chord progression itself, and then I’ll just… record it to a cellphone and just kind of sing along with it without being caught up in playing the guitar or piano. And that’s sort of how a lot of songs come out, is you sing melodies against a progression that you wrote. And with me, unless a progression’s got something a little different about it… if it’s just a standard stock progression I usually end up not writing it ‘cause I go, ‘Well, man, that’s already been done.’ So, I try to come up with something, at least a small surprise on every song that I write, if I can.”
“I kind of like to make albums as though they were, ya’ know, ya’ got ten songs ya’ got ten different artists. And most A&R guys at record companies would say, ‘No no no, that’s not the way to go. We want you to write the same song twelve times and put it on a record’.”
“It only ends up getting written and done by me if it excites me. If I go, ‘Wow, I like hearing this back’.”
“I read somewhere, it says, ‘If it’s not somewhat personal, it’s not art’.”
“I was diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer on a Monday and the next day (my son) died of esophageal cancer.”
“I think the biggest things that happen to people you usually tend to stumble into. It just happens that way.”
“I’ve been writing and doing this stuff since I was (age) 14. I don’t know how to do anything else.”
“Learn how to handle rejection ‘cause you’re going to get a lot of it.”
“The minute we’re out of the top ten, we’re back to being dummies on the street. So, one thing you gotta know, you gotta remember that you might be hot for a minute, but how are you going to handle it when it isn’t that way?”
“I think you gotta find something in it that doesn’t demand acceptance to keep you going.”
“Streaming, it really is the next generation of Napster, except you pay a certain amount of money. But the musicians aren’t really getting paid very much.”
“If money is what you’re looking for to get into the music business… think twice ‘cause it probably won’t happen. If any artist is putting out albums at this point of the game, it’s for one reason – because they damn well love it.”
“Livin’ for Love”
“Especially Me”